Sarkozy Pushes Back Against Campaign-Finance Inquiry

PARIS — Former President Nicolas Sarkozy fought back hard on Friday through his lawyer and his political allies after he was formally placed under investigation on charges of exploiting the frailty of France’s richest woman to secure financing for his 2007 campaign.

The announcement late Thursday night by the investigative judge in the case created political shock waves, because it appeared to undermine the possibility of Mr. Sarkozy’s return to political life after narrowly losing the presidency, and with it his immunity from prosecution, last May.

His friends and allies in his center-right party, the Union for a Popular Movement, mounted an angry media offensive on Friday, accusing the investigative judge in Bordeaux, Jean-Michel Gentil, of a politically motivated decision, pointing out that he had acted just days after the Socialist president, François Hollande, unpopular in the polls, was embarrassed by the resignation of his budget minister.

Mr. Sarkozy, 58, has been floating the idea of a return to politics at the head of his divided party and a possible challenge to Mr. Hollande in 2017.

“This is completely slanderous,” Claude Guéant, an interior minister and presidential chief of staff under Mr. Sarkozy, told the television station i-Télé. “Who can imagine that Nicolas Sarkozy exploited the weakened state of an elderly woman to extract money from her?”

On Twitter, François Fillon, Mr. Sarkozy’s former prime minister, declared himself “stupefied” by a decision as “unjust as it is extravagant.” And Mr. Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, said he would appeal the judge’s decision to open the investigation.

Mr. Sarkozy has vehemently denied reports that he any accepted campaign money from Liliane Bettencourt, 90, the heiress to the L’Oréal fortune and France’s richest woman, either personally or through his political party, let alone in large amounts, which would be illegal under French law. Ms. Bettencourt’s former butler has accused Mr. Sarkozy, a friend of the Bettencourt family, of being passed envelopes of cash either directly or through his party treasurer, Éric Woerth, who is also under investigation.

Ms. Bettencourt was declared to be in a state of dementia in 2006 and was placed under the guardianship of her family in 2011.

The judge did not charge Mr. Sarzoky with illegal campaign financing, which has a narrower statute of limitations. Instead, Judge Gentil charged Mr. Sarkozy with “abus de faiblesse,” or exploitation of frailty. If the case goes to trial and he is convicted, Mr. Sarkozy could face up to three years in prison and a fine of as much as 375,000 euros, or about $500,000.

The investigation into the charges will continue — at least a dozen other people have also been put under formal investigation in the case, meaning that the judge believes there is reasonable evidence of a crime. The judge will eventually make a recommendation to prosecutors, who will decide whether to seek an indictment against Mr. Sarkozy and bring him to trial.

Photo

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy in April 2012.Credit
Lionel Bonaventure/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Judge Gentil, as an investigative magistrate, is supposed to be neutral, neither on the side of the police nor the defendant. He operates in a hierarchy that is meant to shield him from politics and guarantee his independence, but he was nonetheless the target of much partisan vitriol on Friday.

“I contest the way in which he does his work,” Henri Guaino, a parliamentarian and former top aide to Mr. Sarkozy, told Europe 1 radio. “I find it disgraceful. I find that he has dishonored a man, state institutions, the justice system.” (In response to Mr. Guaino’s comments, a magistrates’ union announced that it would consider legal action against him for trying to discredit a judicial ruling.)

Other politicians suggested a conspiracy to keep Mr. Sarkozy from returning to challenge a weakened Mr. Hollande, while others suggested that investigative magistrates, an instrument of Napoleonic code whom Mr. Sarkozy wanted to abolish, are getting their revenge.

“Certain magistrates have grudges to settle with the former president of the republic,” one lawmaker, Thierry Mariani, told Le Monde. On Twitter, a parliamentary colleague, Lionnel Luca, even wondered if Mr. Hollande had not in some mysterious way influenced the decision.

“The only chance for François Hollande in 2017 is to eliminate by all means the possibility of a candidacy of the only adversary who can defeat him!” Mr. Luca wrote.

Politicians on the left, despite the anger that Mr. Sarkozy inspired while president, sounded carefully uncelebratory on Friday, contenting themselves with professions of shock at the behavior on the right.

“The shrieks from Mr. Guéant, from Mr. Guaino this morning worry me a bit about the conception they have of the justice system,” the housing minister, Cécile Duflot, told French media. “Why would Mr. Sarkozy be the object, now that he’s become a citizen like any other, of different treatment?”

The investigation of Mr. Sarkozy proves that “the justice system does its work freely,” Ms. Duflot said.

David Assouline, a senator and spokesman for Mr. Hollande’s Socialist Party, called the criticisms a violent spectacle. “I find particularly deleterious this manner of hunting in a pack, as a clan, to impress and pressure,” Mr. Assouline told Agence France-Presse. “The justice system works in complete independence. It must be able to continue to do so serenely. And Nicolas Sarkozy is presumed innocent, one must recall.”

There were some suggestions that the relatively guarded reactions on the left were perhaps a result of the resignation earlier iof Mr. Hollande’s budget minister, Jérôme Cahuzac, earlier in the week. Mr. Cahuzac, who is reported to have once maintained an undeclared bank account in Switzerland, stepped down just hours after the announcement that he would be formally investigated on suspicion of tax fraud and money laundering. He maintained his innocence, but Mr. Hollande reportedly demanded his immediate resignation.

In an e-mail Friday to supporters of the Union for a Popular Movement, the party’s president, Jean-François Copé, said Mr. Sarkozy, who called him Thursday night, had expressed a “strong sentiment of incomprehension before this unbelievable decision.” Mr. Sarkozy remains nonetheless “extremely combative and confident,” wrote Mr. Copé. “He is resolved to see the whole truth exposed in this affair.”